Schwicky.net - Restoring a backup with a missing tape or corrupt catalog

May 5th, 2006

I recently had a Windows 2003 server that went bersek and where the semi-hardware RAID suddently showed no files more recent than a week before. At the same time, the rsync backup I do on a nearby standing Linux server also failed because the server had refused the mount of the data directory the last time I rebooted the Linux server. Moreover, thanks to Murphy (If something goes wrong, anything will go wrong), the last successful backup was more than a week old because the the data amount grew so much that there was not enough space for all data on one tape - but nobody had put a second tape in the drive to finish the backup.
By default, it is not so easy to restore data from a backup set where one drive is missing. Thankfully, there are at least 2 good sets of howtos:

What do you want me to do with a backup? What I need now is a restore!

How can Windows 2000 backup restore a multi-tape backup set, when some of the tapes are missing? - From JSI FAQ
How to restore data from a backup set that contains a missing or corrupted tape - Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

This Site used to be
powered by
Linux From Scratch!

"Ich habe in Norwegen folgenden Virus- Mail empfangen: DEAR RECEIVER, You have just received a Swedish virus. Since we are not so technologically advanced in Sweden, this is a MANUAL virus. Please delete all the files on your hard disk yourself and send this mail to everyone you know. Thank you very much for helping me. - Den Hinweis auf Schwedisch kommt daher dass Norwegen und Schweden schon immer etwas verfeindet wahren und sind."
Dazu: "Die Schweden scheinen wirklich technologisch noch nicht weit zu sein, denn der Virus enthaelt einen fatalen Programmierfehler: Nachdem ich ordnungsgemaess alle Dateien von meiner Festplatte geloescht hatte, sah ich mich aufgrund ploetzlichen, unerklaerlichen Ressourcenmangels ausserstande, den Virus an meine Freunde weiterzusenden. Ich dachte erst, es laege an Windows 2000, aber sogar bei meinem Freund mit dem Linux-System trat das gleiche Phaenomen auf. Bitte teilen Sie dem Autor des Virus mit, dass er mit solch offensichtlich ungetestetem Code keine nennenswerte Kundenzufriedenheit erreichen wird.
Anonymous